1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to both an information processing device such as a IC card capable of retaining data in a secure manner, and also an information processing terminal such as a portable telephone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), and a personal computer, which mount thereon the above-explained information processing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Very recently, secure devices such as IC cards have been utilized in various fields, for example, electronic money, commuter passes, electronic tickets, and the like. Currently, since very fine processing technical ideas are improved, such memories having relatively large storage spaces have been manufactured. Since IC cards (will be referred to as “IC cards” hereinafter which contain various sorts of secure devices) equipped with such large storage memories are capable of storing thereinto a plurality of application programs at the same time, a single piece of such an IC card may be utilized in plural sorts of utilization fields.
While this IC card is mounted on such an information processing terminal as a portable telephone and the like, since either a keyboard or a display of the information processing terminal is used as a user interface with respective to the IC card, or since either data which is written into the IC card or data which has been read out from the IC card is transmitted onto a network by utilizing a communication function of the information processing terminal, various sorts of services can be carried out.
However, in order to execute such various services, a terminal application program is necessarily required to be installed in the information processing terminal, while this terminal application program defines operations which should be executed by this information processing terminal when the above-explained services are carried out.
Conventionally, information processing terminals acquire the above-described terminal application program by downloading this terminal application program via a network from service providers.
For instance, the below-mentioned patent publication 1 (Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-141457) discloses such an information processing terminal 30 which downloads from a service provider, a terminal application program capable of displaying value information such as an electronic money and an electronic ticket, which have been stored in an IC card, even under off-line environment. That is, as shown in FIG. 21, this information processing terminal 30 is provided with an application URL input unit 34, a communication unit 35, a reception data verifying unit 33, and a storage unit 32. The application URL input unit 34 is used to input a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a service provider. The communication unit 35 is communicated to the service provider. The reception data verifying unit 33 verifies the reception data. The storage unit 32 stores thereinto a received terminal application program 31. On the other hand, an IC card 10 is equipped with a non-contact communication unit 13, and a card application program 11. The non-contact communication unit 13 transfers/receives value formation between a reader/writer 50 and the IC card 10. The card application program 11 defines operations of the IC card 10 which should be carried out when a request issued from the terminal application program 31 is received. It should be understood that reference numerals which are circled indicate sequences of operations (this is similarly applied to below-mentioned drawings).
In order to view the value information 12 stored in this IC card 10 by employing the information processing terminal 30 under off-line environment, a user inputs the URL of the terminal application program 31 which has been stored in the server 40 of the service provider into the application URL input unit 34. The application URL input unit 34 transfers this entered URL to the communication unit 35 (1), and the communication unit 35 receives the terminal application program 32 from the server 40 based upon the transferred URL, and then, transfers the received terminal application program 31 to the reception data verifying unit 33 (2). The reception data verifying unit 33 executes verification of the terminal application program 31, and then, if there is no problem, then the reception data verifying unit 33 stores the verified terminal application program 31 into the storage unit 32 (3).
This terminal application program 31 is initiated by an operation of the user, and then, requests the value information 12 to the card application 11 of the IC card 10 mounted on the information processing terminal 30. The card application program 11 reads out the stored value information 12, and then transmits the read value information 12 to the information processing terminal 30 (4). The terminal application program 31 executes such a process operation that the acquired value information 12 is displayed on a display unit of the information processing terminal 30.
Also, the below-mentioned patent publication 2 (Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-22427) discloses a recording device (MultiMedia Card: registered trademark of InfineonTechnologies AG in Germany) which is mounted on an information processing terminal. That is, when a new function is additionally provided with this recording device, the recording device is equipped with an upload module of a driver program in order that this function can be used by the information processing terminal.
In order to use the function of the above-described IC card in an information processing terminal, a terminal application program for a service purpose corresponding to the IC card must have been installed on the side of the information processing terminal. In such a case that the terminal application program for the service purpose has not yet been installed in the information processing terminal, in the conventional format, a series of such operations are required to be carried out. That is, in this conventional format, a check is made of a location where the terminal application program corresponding to the machine sort of this information processing terminal can be downloaded, a user inputs the URL thereof and the like into the information processing terminal so as to download the terminal application program, and thus, the user installs this downloaded terminal application program in this information processing terminal. Since the above-described series of these operations cause users to perform the cumbersome operations, in such a case that a certain user does not become skilled in operations of an information processing terminal, there are some possibilities that this user cannot install the terminal application program, and thus, finally, cannot utilize the function of the IC card.
Also, in the case that the information processing terminal is a portable telephone, there is such a problem that a telephone communication fee is required when the terminal application program is downloaded to this portable telephone.
Also, in such a case that the above-described MultiMedia Card owns the IC card function for executing the card application program, in order that the function of the card application of the MultiMedia Card is used by the information processing terminal, the updating operation of the driver program by the conventional technique cannot give satisfactory utilization, and therefore, the terminal application program for the service purpose, which corresponds to this card application program, must be installed in the information processing terminal.
When a new function is added, there are many cases that a terminal application program for a service purpose as to this newly added function is newly required. As a consequence, in the conventional format, the following problems occur. That is, a user himself of an information processing terminal must select such a terminal application program which corresponds to the machine sort of this information processing terminal and must install this selected terminal application program; the user can hardly judge that what sort of terminal application program is selected; and the user must perform a similar cumbersome operation to the above-explained operation. Although there is such a method that a certain program operated on the information processing terminal may judge this proper terminal application program, an installing operation of the terminal application program to the information processing information depends upon the program operated on the information processing terminal in this case. Thus, there is another problem that a confirming operation as to a license to the use of this terminal application program cannot be carried out in a safety manner, namely, an issuing person of the terminal application program cannot control the use of the terminal application program.